In a world with an intellectual history of seven thousand years behind it, where do Pakistanis stand, what are they doing, what do they aspire to be, and what ought they to be doing? This Blog takes Notes of all of that ...

Monday, August 20, 2012

Wikileaking clandestine governments

AFP reports that WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange urged President Barack Obama to end the US "witchhunt"
against his whistleblowing website, in a speech Sunday from the balcony of
Ecuador's London embassy.

"I ask President Obama to do the
right thing, the United States must renounce its witchhunt against
WikiLeaks," said Assange, making his first public statement since being
granted political asylum by Ecuador on Thursday. [August 20, 2012]

I love Julian Assange. His initiative
of wikileaking clandestine governments strikes at the root of the politics
of ruling elites, or better say, political elites.

Here is the explanation:

Wikileaking clandestine governments

The latest ‘leaks’ of Wikileaks
provide a historical opportunity to re-consider many a taken for granted
truth!

This writing too intends to discuss
afresh some such propositions which relates to the affairs of the governments.
For instance, whether governments are justified in keeping various types of
information secret. In Pakistan and maybe in other such countries
also, this is an accepted truth. People outside governments than those inside
seem more convinced in this regard. That is to be more loyalist than the king.
As is the case, in contrast to the ordinary people, the elitist both inside and
outside governments are to be blamed for this myth. They present government as
a transcendental entity, and attribute it with similar characteristics. Without
going into a lengthy debate, the simple truth is that rulers and government
officials, be they elected, or nominated or appointed, all of them are from the
same society of human beings, and the same countries where they come to be
rulers or officials. They are not endowed with these powers to rule others from
any other-world. These powers are given to them by the citizens as a trust.

Obviously, these powers are not
absolute. They are determined and limited. Means that that’s no monarchy,
rather a constitutional government which runs under certain rules and laws. It
is for this reason that while someone is invested with powers, at the same time
he is made responsible and accountable. To determine the scope of these powers,
and their limits also, is the intent of laws and constitutions. For oversight,
various institutions are created. That is what makes the existence of
executive, legislature, and judiciary indispensable. Judiciary keeps a check on
executive whether it is acting in accordance with the provisions of the
constitution and laws of the land, and on legislature also whether the new laws
enacted contradict or contravene with the dictates of the constitution. In Pakistan,
its citizens have recently achieved a judiciary, which is not lame-duck, but
alive and vigorous.

Thus, as viewed above, if the powers
acquired by the rulers and officials are like a trust, then there is no
justification to keep information about the affairs of the government secret.
Why a government’s own matters or a government’s matters with another
government should be secret is without any grounds! No argument validates this
claim. However, it has been so, and remains so.

More to this, considering every
government runs (and swells) at the expense of its citizens’ wealth, i.e. by
levying taxes, it is quite natural for it to account for each single penny.
Same is the purpose of audit and social audit. This means that all the affairs
should proceed in complete transparency. There is no excuse for any secret or
discretionary funds. All the incomes and expenditures of governments, including
defense, should be transparent and open. This has become damn easier today. All
the accounts should be put on internet for the perusal of the citizens. To
this, only one exception can be considered. That’s the security and defense of
a country, especially during war. To this end, certain information can be kept
confidential. However, in this area extreme caution is needed. The type of
information which today’s governments intend to conceal from their ‘enemies’
the very enemies somehow gain access to that, of course, due to the advancement
of technology. Also, Wikileaks prove no information can be made and kept
secret.

Hence, if all the affairs of
governments are open and transparent, most of the possibility of this or that
type of armed revolts, and war will be reduced to the minimum. This proposition
would never be welcomed by rulers and governments, and also by those who
despite their being outside government are stuffed with a thinking of ruling
other people. They are ‘rulers’ from inside, or by instinct. They can never
concede to or tolerate that the matters of governments be brought in open
before the ‘ordinary’ citizens.

It is thanks to such elitist people
that governments have enacted laws and rules like official secret acts, or
classified information, and turned themselves into some transcendental entities.
More than that, they step ahead of this when they not only conceal their
affairs from their citizens but make leaking them a crime which invites various
types of punishments. So, on the one hand in addition to concealing their
affairs from their citizens, governments lie as well as mislead their citizens,
and on the other, they contrive incomplete, incorrect and false information
which they mean for “public consumption.” Interestingly, this has engaged civil
society in securing citizens’ right to information. This makes for a mission
for many an NGO.

In view of above, it may be concluded
that the information which Wikileaks has leaked is in fact the property not
only of the US citizens but world citizens. Wikileaks has only
returned that information to its rightful owners. We should be thankful to
Wikeleaks, and wish there spring hundreds of such initiatives which will bring
official secrets and classified information back to where it rightfully belong
to. And by doing this, they will make the citizens powerful instead of their
governments. In leaking and revealing the secrets of governments lies the
secret of citizens’ freedom and prosperity!

The Blogger

The blogger cherishes a cosmopolitan spirit; he is a moralist; a rationalist; a philosopher; a political philosopher; he believes in Classical Liberalism, as a Theory of Conduct.
He has substantially contributed to the founding of the first free market think tank of Pakistan, Alternate Solutions Institute.
He is a writer who wrote / published dozens of articles on a variety of issues, and is author of 4 books.
He wrote / published short-stories in Punjabi, a regional language of Pakistan.
He composes poetry both in Urdu and Punjabi, and has already published one collection.